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Tips for starting an influencer marketing program

Posted on September 23, 2020 by Wellons team

You’ve probably heard of influencer marketing before. Maybe the term brings to mind visions of Kylie Jenner sharing a product she loves on Instagram, and it seems out of reach for your business.

But to be honest, that’s just not true. There are options within influencer marketing for many types of businesses. You just have to find the right fit for you—and get started.

What is influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing blends the ideas of traditional advertising, public relations and celebrity endorsements. It involves working with a brand or person who has influence in your space, likely on social media or a digital platform, to drive awareness for your brand and/or drive sales.

The sticking point for many people is that they envision these elusive influencers as celebrities with millions of followers. But influencer marketing can also mean working with what are known as micro influencers—a somewhat misleading term for influencers who have a smaller following, but who speak to a specific niche and have very engaged fans. These influencers might reach fewer people, but they tend to give you a bigger bang for your buck.

How to develop an influencer marketing strategy for your business

In short, influencers can make a big difference for you (we’ve seen it!), whether your business is a nationwide product or a local restaurant, drawing new fans to your pages and property and building that bottom line. You just have to find the right fit for you. Want to learn how? To start, you need to think long and hard about your brand and your goals. Check out our best tips below.

Define your goals. As with most things in business, you need to go in with eyes wide open as to what you want. Do you want to drive SEO results for your company with seeded keywords? You might want to focus on bloggers rather than social influencers. Do you want to reach young people with a wow-worthy, trendy product? Maybe TikTok is for you. Do your users have a big Instagram community? Maybe Instagram influencer marketing is the best way for people to discover your product.

This decision is going to drive all others—and ultimately determine how happy you are with the results—so choose wisely.

Outline the ops. Before you actually start working with an influencer, it’s a good idea to work out what that will look like. How will you package your product (special touches might stand out!)? How will the influencer check into the hotel or make their restaurant reservation, and how will you communicate to staff what’s going to happen?

At this stage, you will also want to think about budget. Many of the best influencers have a media kit outlining their rates for things like a blog post or social story. Others will accept products or experiences—depending on the value—in exchange for a reasonable scope. Some businesses also offer affiliate benefits for partners, allowing them to earn a commission on sales. Decide what your budget will be for this campaign and how you will handle it.

Find your fit. Now comes the fun part. Get on your chosen platform and do some research. Find the go-to influencers in your space. Explore hashtags, or check out other brands you admire to see who they work with. Do a quick search. When you find someone you think is a fit, look deeper. What kinds of things do they post? How many followers do they have? What is their engagement rate, and who is their target audience? Make sure they have enough sway with the right people to help you reach your goals, and make sure they’re someone with whom you want to align your brand.

Make it happen. Find your chosen influencer’s contact info and shoot them an email or just reach out on their popular platform. Outline what you’re thinking, and see if it aligns with their vision and standards. It might help to draw up an informal influencer agreement outlining what both sides can expect for the partnership. If this is a paid partnership with a big budget, you might even draw up a contract, like you would with any other ad deal. Be sure to ask influencers to follow all guidelines regarding disclosures. It can also be helpful to provide your influencer with your own media kit, especially if there are certain messaging points you’d really like to hit. Influencers will often pull from this so they can give their followers reliable information, and it can support your overall branding goals.

Track and reuse. Your influencer received your product, loved it and shared. They came to your resort and wrote a glowing blog. They visited your restaurant and posted a swoon-worthy pic on Insta or video on TikTok. Amazing! Now, you need to see if your program worked. Follow up with your influencer about their experience (you are, hopefully, building a relationship, after all!). Ask them to provide any internal stats they might have about performance (page views, reach, etc.). Take a look yourself at your web traffic or social analytics and see what can be tied to the partnership. This will all help guide you in future influencer partnerships.

And don’t forget a vital step—reuse this influencer content wherever you can. Influencers produce some amazing content for your brand, and you should be engaging with it, reposting it to your page and sharing blogs and vlogs to make the most of your partnership.

Influencer marketing can work for you

Now that you have the steps, tweak and repeat. Despite the sometimes bad rep influencer marketing gets, when done correctly, it can be a great thing for your business.

Feeling a little overwhelmed by the prospect of starting from scratch? Call in the pros. At Wellons Communications, we’ve put our PR savvy to work for years building influencer programs for everything from national products to local restaurants. We understand how the process works and have built great relationships with all kinds of influencers. We’d love to put our know-how to work for you. Give us a call at 407-339-0879 or email will@wellonscommunications.com, and let us get started working for your busines

Why COVID-19 could be your opportunity for media coverage

Posted on July 29, 2020 by Wellons team

We’re all numbed by the overwhelming amount of information doled out daily by public health officials, governmental officials and other well-meaning organizations.

Wear masks. Keep your distance. Wash your hands. It’s a mantra we have heard—and lived—daily since COVID began to make its presence felt in early February.

Lost in the shuffle is information about products and services that continue to operate without interruption and whose services are in demand.

Surprisingly, there is considerable demand for product and service information. However, in response to this demand, information outflow by public relations operatives has actually decreased.

In our estimation, that presents an opportunity you cannot afford to miss.

How do we know media wants more information in today’s COVID times?

Energy PR, a well-respected British public relations firm based north of London, conducted a survey of nearly 150 British media outlets in the past month. The survey explored how things have changed for them since COVID-19.

The answers Energy PR uncovered offer some valuable insights that businesses and brands can capitalize upon. You can see their survey for yourself here.

One survey, of course, does not a trend make. However, like Energy PR, we hear journalists saying, “I am okay with COVID material, but I need other stuff as well.”

Here’s what Energy’s survey tells us:

Don’t try to be COVID-relevant when you’re not. There is so much COVID information out there that you get lost in the shuffle and become just another COVID story. A full 20 percent of journalists report that “no one is doing or saying anything new at the moment.”

Creativity counts. Sometimes creativity is simply being the oracle of the obvious. Actions like pointing media toward your blog posts, identifying how customers are adjusting to changing times and even new, unforeseen responses from your customers can all provide information that may serve as a news hook for outlets hungry for something besides COVID.

Don’t hold back. Business acumen and insights count. But you’ve got to express your ideas—and distribute them—to get noticed.

If you have something to say about your business category, now’s the time. If you’re noticing significant changes in consumer behavior, be a leader in your category and say it.

If you have something totally unique to point toward, go all out and issue a press release, tweet, conduct a webinar or make yourself available as a guest on a podcast. Above all, however, let your PR firm know about it so your marketing team can take advantage of what you have to say.

Capitalize on the lack of information. The sheer volume of information in the current news environment offers an extraordinary marketing opportunity for you to put your name in front of households who are weary of news revolving around The Mantra (masks, distance, handwashing) and COVID.

Here’s how Wellons Communications can help you…right now:

We know how to identify what’s newsworthy, even when you may not realize you have news.

We have exceptional news distribution capabilities that can put your news in the hands of journalists who are eagerly looking for something to report on other than COVID. We also possess the kind of creativity that can make your message stand out and call for attention.

We have outstanding resources at our fingertips that can graphically make your messaging come to life. And we understand how to make your message turn into memorable video and audio “bites” that can put your product or service into the news.

You can capitalize on an open news window right now…but only if you act.

Never before have we seen the media so eager to report something beside The Elephant in the Room (COVID). Indeed, with smaller-than-ever staffs and less time available to research and identify what’s newsworthy, media have become more and more dependent on folks like us at Wellons Communications to help them find stories that will interest their readers, viewers and listeners.

You can only take advantage of this opportunity by acting. The media are not going to find you if you wait for them to call.

Instead, let someone like us give you a hand in crafting and distributing information that will put your product or service into the news. We can help you connect with your target audiences and conversely, allow your would-be customers to connect with you in the form of sales.

Call me, Will Wellons, at 407-462-2718 or email me at will@wellonscommunications.com and let me know what you want your audiences to hear.

Why you need to think about crisis communications now (and how to start)

Posted on July 8, 2020 by Wellons team

With everything 2020 has thrown at businesses, it’s probably not too hard to imagine why your business might need a crisis communications plan.

There have been countless lessons over the past few months of businesses tackling crisis head on, and many cautionary tales of businesses falling on their faces.

Even so, it’s easy to see why it doesn’t get checked off your to-do list. In the day-to-day hubbub, while you’re just trying to stay afloat, devoting the time to developing a crisis plan might not seem like a priority. Maybe you think you can’t fully craft a plan until you know what you’re facing. Or maybe you don’t even know where to start at all.

But whatever the reason, there are so many more that you should take the time to walk through your crisis communications plan…NOW.

If you don’t have a plan, you’re just reacting. Imagine driving down a dark, curvy road at night. With your headlights on, you can only see a few feet in front of you. You don’t know what’s lurking up ahead. Now turn on the brights. Suddenly, you can see a lot more.

Crisis happens fast. Having a plan means you can see further up the road. Without one, you’re just reacting to whatever pops up.

Social media means crisis is even faster. With so many different platforms, social media can mean you feel a crisis even more. You have a more direct platform to communicate with your guests or customers, and they have a more direct platform to communicate with you. If you don’t have a plan, the chatter on social media can be deafening…and devastating.

Having a plan forces you to define your brand. As you craft a crisis communications plan, you’re going to have to further evaluate who you are as a company. What do you value? What is your brand voice, and what do you say with it? Any time you look internally—to determine your best-selling products, to identify sales opportunities, to find new verticals, to form new positions—you strengthen your company because you can more clearly articulate these things.

You show employees you care. Just like when you put new HR policies in place, having a crisis communications plan helps your employees. It shows that you take your company seriously and value what you’re building together. It shows that you care about concerns and are the kind of company that works proactively to protect staff.

You show your customers you care. No one likes to deal with a crisis, but when you do—and when you’re prepared—you show your customers how seriously you take your brand. You show you are taking action, and you show you value their trust in you.

Have we convinced you?

Getting started doesn’t have to be intimidating. First, take some time to brainstorm a variety of situations your company might face. Think about how you might handle those situations. What might you say (or not say) and what platforms might you use to spread (or monitor) that message?

Next, designate a crisis team with a point person or spokesperson. This might also be a great time to engage an agency (hi!). Together, come up with an action plan. You might even start to draft some communications that can be quickly and easily customized and deployed.

Still need a little help? Wellons Communications has helped clients weather all kinds of storms. We’ve been helping clients prepare for more than a decade, and we’d be happy to lend a third-party perspective to your business.

Give us a call at (407) 462-2718 or email will@wellonscommunications.com for a free consultation.

Does your agency do that? The service you need to take advantage of

Posted on June 24, 2020 by Wellons team

When your agency crafts a social media strategy that gives you a great ROI, it’s amazing. When they knock it out of the park with a huge media hit, it’s impressive. When they execute on an email campaign that boosts the bottom line, you’re thrilled.

All of that is great (and we hope that’s happening for you). But if your agency partner is not an expert in one key area, chances are, you’re underutilizing your resources—and none of the above outcomes will be possible.

What is it?

It’s content.

More often than not, potential clients come to us requesting help with social media or wanting a press release written and distributed to the media. We do both, but the reason we’re able to do so successfully is because what we do best at Wellons Communications is craft content. And your agency should be able to say the same.

What is content?

Content is everywhere, from an organic post on Instagram to an SEO blog, a marketing email and even a white paper. It could be an internal communication, like a letter to your employees, customers or vendors, or a sales sheet, like a case study.

It could even be a non-written form, like a video or infographic.

To put it simply, content is how you tell your story, how you express your brand to your audience and the world. It is the lifeblood of everything your agency does.

What are the benefits of content?

When done right, content can help you achieve your marketing and PR goals. You can expand your reach with an SEO blog or a well-crafted digital ad.

You can cut through the clutter and grab your audience’s attention with an eye-catching email. Or you can communicate your point of difference clearly in success stories, sales sheets and white papers.

With content done right, you can gain customers, makes sales and position yourself as an industry leader.

Why should your agency lead content?

It’s true that content is incredibly important to businesses of all sizes. There’s a good reason many CEOs, CMOs and everyone in between try to hold on to content. They know their story, and they believe they can tell it better than anyone else.

With the wrong agency, that might be true. But the right agency should be a partner for your business. They should not only click with you right away, making you feel like they just “get” you from the start, but they should continue to hone that relationship, learning and circling in on the core of your message.

They should come to understand you like you understand yourself and be able to explain that across all sorts of platforms.

If they don’t, you’ll feel the limits of your relationship even in something as simple as a social media post or a press release.

But when your agency does have this level of understanding, having them hit on all levels of content is an amazing benefit—and one you should take advantage of.

For starters, your agency should be made up of professionals. You hire them to take in information, synthesize it, and determine the best way to share it. When you can use that storytelling ability across platforms, you’re firing on all cylinders of communication. Drawing on content, your agency can tell your company’s story as a united front, from a single tweet to a guest article in your favorite trade publication. And that’s incredibly powerful.

At Wellons Communications, we’re storytellers first. Our agency is made up of former journalists and PR pros, all of whom have been trained to listen, tease out the unique details of your story and tell it eloquently. We’re not limited by platform or length.

Want to take advantage of that? Give Will a call at 407-462-2718 or email him at will@wellonscommunications.com.

Lean on simple messaging and graphics to tell your reopening story

Posted on May 19, 2020 by Wellons team

What’s the best way to re-establish commerce as we knew it before the onset of COVID-19?

Truth be told, no one has all the answers. And, there is no “one size fits all”. Whatever approach you adopt for reopening must be tailored to your audience and what you can communicate about your business.

And, whatever you convey about your business needs to immediately connect with your current and potential clients and possess relevancy to their needs, as well as your ability to deliver services.

So, what are some ways you can affordably and instantly cut through the clutter of COVID-19-related messaging to get your message across?

Use graphics to fast-track your message.

Lean on high-impact PR graphics to tell your story…graphics that present memorable, easy-to-understand information about you, and your service, at a single glance.

Something as simple as a postcard can re-establish that you are open and operating. A message like “We’re up and running”, accompanied by your name and how to reach you will immediately establish a key element of reopening marketing communications.

The same message can easily be reconfigured to a visual-centric email that can be viewed and understood in a single moment. It can also be adapted to a text message or posts on social media.

Make your graphics as powerful as possible

Make it easy for your target to understand you are up and operating.

Aim for high impact and a minimum of clutter and distraction. A simple message surrounded by white space, for example, can have the same power and impact as a costly billboard or a paid full-page ad in a newspaper (either the printed kind or their online editions).

A single, memorable graphic or combined headline-graphic, along with your company’s name and logo, can get your point across and immediately convey that your business is moving forward.

Your message has to be more than “We are open.”

As businesses reopen, one’s first instinct is likely to blurt out “We’re open” or “We’ve reopened.”

That’s all well and good, but it doesn’t exactly jump off the page. That’s because millions of other businesses are saying the very same thing. So many businesses are saying “We’ve re-opened” that it is difficult to remember who is who, what they are selling, and why it is relevant to you.

Your message has to be short. Simple. And different.

Creating short, simple messages that are different can be amazingly powerful. But it’s not as simple as it sounds.

It is a process that requires some hard thinking on the part of your communications team and discipline on your part.

In these communications-overloaded times, we have found that keeping it simple is a strategic approach that consistently works to cut through the clutter and enable our clients to stand apart from the pack.

It’s an approach we are ready to put to work for you.

We thrive on the challenge of creating simple but powerful messages and blending them with memorable graphics to convey your key marketing messages.

Creating short, simple messages and making your message different is where Wellons Communications can assist you.

If that’s the kind of fast-track approach you need to help get your marketing communications re-established, then talk with us.

We’ll listen carefully to what you want to accomplish with your messaging and work quickly, but thoughtfully, to provide solutions that can accelerate getting your business operating as much “back to normal” as possible in as short a time as possible.

Call me, Will Wellons, at 407-462-2718, or email me at will@wellonscommunications.com and let me put our team of messaging pros behind you

Cut through the clutter and make your voice heard

Posted on April 24, 2020 by Wellons team

As we head toward the rest of 2020, the challenge of effectively projecting your message — and unique characteristics — to your target audiences is going to be increasingly difficult.

Media will remain neck-deep in coverage of the presidential race, as well as state and local races. The coronavirus will remain at the top of the news for the remainder of 2020. And who knows what other news is around the corner waiting to pull attention away from your message?

The competition for consumer attention has never been more challenging

Forbes contributor Paul Jankowski neatly sums it up with his observation that “…brands have a better chance of keeping the attention of a goldfish than their targeted consumer.”

Need convincing? Try these observations on for size:

The average American is exposed to around 4,000 to 10,000 messages per day. Less than 100 of those messages will be remembered.
Human attention spans have dropped from 12 seconds to eight seconds.
According to a Deloitte study, the average American looks at their phone 52 times a day.

That means you cannot spend a lot of time trying to explain who you are and what you offer. It means that your message must possess simplicity and visibility to have a reasonable expectation of breaking through.

Wellons Communications solution: short messages and great visuals.

Our Orlando PR agency has consistently preached “keep it simple.” It’s a philosophy we embrace and one that underlines a strategic approach we consistently adopt to ensure our client’s message is both heard and recognized.

Arriving at that messaging, however, requires discipline and hard work.

To formulate the message (and the approach that backs it up), we work with clients to address the following questions and identify the message that will get attention and connect with their target audience:

What is it you are selling?
Why should your product or service matter to your target audience?
What problem does your product or service solve?
What is the benefit of what you are selling?
What is the solution you bring to your target audience?
What are you trying to say?
What do you want your target audience to do in response to your message?

Once we agree on the answers to these questions, we are in position to determine what you should say and how you should say it.

And when we say it, we want to keep it short and memorable.

Communications have to go beyond words

Words are only a part of the communications process.

At Wellons Communications, we also promote the notion of relying on easy-to-understand visuals to project your message.

The old adage “A picture paints a thousand words” has never been truer than today.

Today’s consumers simply will not always make time to sit down and pore through an article or browse through a post — or even read your headline.

However, graphics and imagery can connect with consumers much faster than text. Witness the popularity of graphics-oriented apps like Instagram, TikTok and the many other photo-related apps that have become so popular.

That places a premium on a well-designed graphic that tells your story in an impactful, memorable way.

So, how can we make your messaging cut through the clutter?

We are bulldogs for adhering to simple solutions.

Keep it short. Keep it simple. Keep it understandable. And make it relevant to your audience.

If that’s the kind of approach you want to employ to improve your marketing, you need to be talking with us. You do the talking. We’ll do the listening. And together, we’ll generate the kinds of marketing results you are seeking.

Share your message with Will Wellons at 407-462-2718 or will@wellonscommunications.com.

Find out more about how our public relations and social media firm can make your messaging work harder, smarter, and more effectively.

Involve your PR firm at the start of marketing planning

Posted on March 10, 2020 by Wellons team

When businesses put together important marketing initiatives, it’s surprising how many times publicity and public relations are treated as an afterthought.

In an overwhelming number of instances, organizations invest enormous energy and time into involving their advertising agencies at the beginning of a communications program aimed at increasing sales. When the idea has been formulated and approved, all too often someone says, “Why don’t we involve PR, too?”

This results in a structured program being handed off to the PR firm with the demand, “Get results.”

Whether or not the marketing message is actually attractive, from a publicity and PR perspective, is a different story—but it is a consideration that needs to be baked into marketing planning from day one.

The best marketing initiatives get PR involved in ground-floor planning

As the old saying goes “Advertising is what you pay for. Publicity is what you pray for.”

Advertising most often occupies the center ring when it comes to marketing planning.

Why?

First, advertising costs a lot of money. For that reason alone, marketing chiefs focus their attention on what is consuming the majority of their marketing budget.

Second, the company can totally control the advertising message. Where it goes, what is says, and when it is issued all are under their direct control.

For those two reasons, marketing chiefs usually start planning by huddling with their advertising agencies—winding up with expensive media plans, accompanied by equally expensive production costs necessary to make a message come to life.

In the rush to center their marketing efforts around advertising, however, businesses often totally fail to capitalize on the PR potential of what their message can—and should—deliver.

That’s an opportunity missed.

It’s also an expensive whiff that can be avoided by putting a member of the PR team in the room at the start of the planning cycle.

Two ways involving PR at the start of planning can benefit you

PR can augment and reinforce advertising messages
PR can connect with audiences in ways advertising cannot

PR’s ability to reinforce and amplify marketing messages is surprisingly effective. Publicity—be it word-of-mouth, customer testimonials or editorial media coverage—is regarded by consumers as more trustworthy.

According to a 2014 Nielsen study, PR is 90% more effective than advertising in influencing consumers. In short, getting a favorable mention of your product or service, which is earned and not paid, holds much more weight than an ad.

By involving your PR team at the start of your planning process, they can better understand what your advertising message is intended to do and what it cannot do—and they can fill that gap.

Second, by involving your PR folks in planning, they can more clearly visualize how they can present your story to editorial media and expand your message into stories that have a connection and credibility advertising simply cannot deliver.

Remember, PR provides you a different marketing weapon

One of the 21^st century buzzwords that has become popular is “influencer marketing,” which is simply a more contemporary way of saying “believability.”

It’s another way of saying that PR provides your product or service with believability. It’s not a new idea, but simply a new way of asking yourself:

Who are you more likely to believe, a salesman or a person just like you who bought or used a product or service?

Which is more believable, an advertisement on TV, in a newspaper or magazine or on the internet, or something that appears in a story that involves a product or service?

Editorial coverage has two great advantages over advertising. Editorial coverage provides third-party validation that advertising lacks. Simply by being recognized in editorial media, coverage implies “this is important.”

PR’s ability to augment one’s believability does not discount paid advertising—it is a totally necessary component of marketing.

The difference between the two serves as a reminder for the need to include PR as an integral part of one’s marketing plan—at the very beginning of the planning process.

When you begin to look ahead to the rest of 2020 or even 2021 and shape your future marketing planning, keep Wellons Communications in mind. We’d love the opportunity to sit down with you, learn more about your vision for your product or service and explore how we can help you improve your overall marketing effectiveness.

Call me at 407-339-0879 or email me (will@wellonscommunications.com) and find out for yourself how we can help you augment your marketing effectiveness.

Beyond the elevator speech: Five questions you need to answer for your business

Posted on January 23, 2020 by Wellons team

We’ve all heard the importance of having an “elevator speech” that tells your audience what you do and how important your product or service is to them.

We at Wellons Communications agree with the idea of a short, punchy message. However, we also believe that you need to work on and perfect a more robust message than a 15-second elevator speech to truly explain the value you bring to your clientele.

With that in mind, at Wellons Communications, we ask our clients five important questions that help define the messages they want to project … and the impressions they want to create.

The Big Five are:

What do you do?
How does your product or service help your client?
What do your competitors say about themselves?
What distinguishes your product or service from your competitors?
Who and where are your potential customers?

Build from the basics

Surprisingly, many business leaders have a difficult time answering these five questions.

They have successfully grown their businesses to the point where they need to expand their marketing program — including public relations — to continue growth. However, when it comes to more precisely defining themselves and what they do for the audiences they serve, they run into challenges.

They know they need to continue reaching out, but struggle to find the ways and means to reach new and different audiences in order to continue expanding sales and growth.

PR is part of your overall marketing package

We view public relations as one of the four primary components of our client’s marketing programs: paid advertising, public relations, sales and research.

Our job centers around publicity management — attracting attention or, in some cases, clarifying and shaping the attention that is defining our clients. That requires us to interact, for the most part, with editorial media, whose independence means their viewpoints and opinions cannot be purchased but can certainly be shaped and influenced with proper messaging.

That means we have to know about you, your business category, your audience, your competitors and what you want to accomplish.

And that means that we need to know the answers to The Big Five questions listed above.

Sometimes, less is better

When we first meet with potential clients, we always ask the Big Five questions.

Often, these potential clients struggle to concisely and clearly answer the Big Five. And, while we listen closely to what we are told, we often learn that the longer a potential client takes to answer these questions, the more difficult it is to concisely and clearly answer the question.

Our first priority is to clearly understand what you do and what you want to do. That means asking tough questions and boiling the answers down to strategic approaches that will result in messaging that your audience can understand and act upon.

The end result may appear to be a very simple solution. But reaching a simple solution requires some complex planning and hard work to achieve.

We think like marketers. We act like PR professionals

If a client were to ask us The Big Five, our answers are:

What do you do?

We provide publicity and related communications services that augment our clients’ overall marketing.

How does your product or service help your client?

We help our clients increase sales by reaching their target audiences with clear, concise messaging that amplifies their reach beyond advertising.

What do your competitors say about themselves?

Our competitors most often claim they are bigger, more experienced, have a larger client base and have greater depth in resources.

What distinguishes your product or service from your competitors?

We are smaller and, because we are smaller, we provide more personalized, hands-on services that are more creative, more nimble and more effective than our larger competitors.

Who and where are your potential customers?

The vast majority of our potential customers are based, or have significant operations, in the Central Florida region. Some of them are in tourism, hospitality and food and beverage and others are in real estate, development, legal and related business categories.

How would you answer The Big Five?

Ask yourself how you would answer the five questions listed above. If you find you have difficulty clearly and concisely answering them, it may be a signal that you have grown to the point that you need some help to augment your marketing program, particularly in the public relations area.

If you’d like to share your answers with us, we’d be eager to hear them. And we would be eager to learn if your business — and ours — would be a good fit.

Want to learn more?

Call or email me (407-339-0879 or will@wellonscommunications.com ) and let’s talk.

Or, better yet, you talk… and I’ll listen.

Why you need to say “Thank You” to your clients

Posted on November 22, 2019 by Wellons team

There is no better time to express your gratitude for the business of your clients than to simply wish them well for the holidays.

Yet, surprisingly, sending a simple and direct message to your clients to let them know that you value the confidence they invest in you is an opportunity that is often overlooked.

Personal messages can cost virtually nothing. They take only a few moments. And the benefits can be immeasurable.

Here are a few ways to let your clients know you are grateful for their business.

The power of a personal note

When was the last time you received an actual hand-written note from someone?

Take five minutes to compose a short message that lets your client know you appreciate the business they have afforded you over the past year. The written word, in your own hand, is enormously powerful.

In an age when tweets, texts, and emails dominate communication, notes stand out. And all they cost is a few moments of your time and postage.

A phone call personalizes your gratitude

Just as simple as a personal note is a personal call to your client.

The act of simply picking up the phone and wishing your client a happy holiday is thoughtful and will stand out simply because you have thought of them.

Better yet, personalize the call by letting your client know you are generally familiar with their family or loved ones. Simply by extending the good wishes to one’s spouse or children in your call can let your client know you have their interests at heart.

What if you want to symbolize your thanks with a gift?

Everyone enjoys receiving gifts. But be careful. Gift-giving needs to be carefully thought through.

Who should you gift? Many companies forbid any corporate gift giving, or only allow employees to accept gifts valued at less than $25.

What should you give? The decision of what to give should comply with your client’s standards and directives on gift-giving and gift-receiving. Sending a gift to a client who’s unable to keep it is awkward for both parties.

The best solution? If you feel a gift is necessary, employ common sense and send a gift that is useful, not overly extravagant, and reflective of both your values and those of your client.

How do other organizations express their thanks during the holidays?

Want to explore more about addressing your client during the holidays, from contact to gift-giving?

You might want to glance at Do’s and Don’ts for Client Gifts Over the Holidays, authored by James Harris that first appeared in Entrepreneur Magazine in December 2017.

Harris’s article is loaded with tips and examples of approaching gift-giving and using gifts—and enhancing connections—with clients.

And thanks to you for taking an interest in Wellons Communications

As we approach the holiday season, those of us at Wellons Communications are grateful for your interest in us.

We value the responsibility and business our clients invest in us to address their public relations needs. We remind ourselves daily that if our clients succeed, we succeed, and without our clients, we do not exist. Best wishes to all for a Happy Thanksgiving and a wonderful 2019 holiday season.